Cheese is one of the best enjoying pairing that you can have with wine but it can be a bit of a challenge! A lot of people think cheese goes with red wine only!!!! Well it is a lie!!!
But let's start with the beginning; Cheese made its appearance 5000 years ago, European cheese can thanks a lot the Greek and then the Roman knowledge. During invasion of country they were sharing their recipes.
But by the Middle Ages the monastic orders made cheeses as we know it today. The size of the cheese at that time was done by the amount of milk they could get in the market but also of the decision of maturation chosen by the cheese-maker.. Which means for example you were using the milk in winter and wanted to sell it in early summer you could not, really make a big wheel!!
You can make cheese from Cow of course but also sheep, goat, buffalo, Reindeer, even camel in the old time!
How do you make cheese? Very easy with Milk, Rennet (vegetarian or animal) when you add this component there is a separation that appeared with the curds and the whey, and salt.
Then you shape it and let it matured depending on how much flavor you want to have..
But I wanted to right down about cheese also to explain the difference between vegetarian rennet and animal rennet; Animal rennet is a enzyme produce in the stomach of a ruminant which is more often cow, that make the cheese non vegetarian, then the other option is to use vegetable such as cardoon thistle, artichokes or nettles they extract the enzyme and filtered it into the cheese. This is a cheese that vegetarian people can have..
I came across a lot of vegetarian customers while I was selling cheese, that were very surprise when I asked them if they were vegetarian or not and used to ask me why, so I explained and they, most of the time, told me " I had no idea!!
With the cheese knowledge that I have the best country for Vegetarian cheeses is England. France, Italy, Spain are using animal Rennet.
Back to cheese and wine now. When you choose a young hard cheese such as Comte or Piave, Manchego, you can go with a lovely red fruity wine or nice mellow white wine.. When you choose a moldy cheese such as Camembert, Brie, Brillat Savarin, Bath you need a medium to full red wine, the creaminess and salt of the cheese will break through the tannin of the wine. The fresh goat or ewe cheeses goes with a nice refreshing white wine or the best paring is Sparkling wine or Champagne. Yes! Surprised? Well fresh goat cheese will need the acidity of the wine and best is white wine, but the bubbles of Champagne/Sparkling will enhanced the creaminess and the flavor of the cheese. I will even go further by choosing a Rose one! Yes as the little berries notes will suite very well those cheeses. Then you have the blue cheeses once again it will all depend of the flavor of the cheese, sweet wine is one of the perfect pairing but if your blue is very soft on flavor why not paring it with a light fruity red wine! try it is worth it!
I know it is very brief but this is the beginning of this article, I will, once a week,write about a type of cheese and make some pairing with it. But please if you have any question I will love to help you make your pairing. You can leave a comment on this article or go directly to my Facebook page and leave your question or even the wine or cheese that you would like to pair with.
I hope to hear from you soon!
A wine lover!